Masks (2 page)

“Tell me about this one,” she murmured, as the condottiere bustled up behind her. And Mircea belatedly realized what the commotion was all about.

A potential purchaser had arrived.

“Been in the city about a year,” the condottiere said, consulting a small notebook. He was a large man, with florid features and a belly that ensured that he didn’t have to pad his tunic to get the popular rounded front. “Lives with some old man over by the Bridge of Tits. Gambler, mostly small-time stuff, tries to keep his head down.”

“Crime?” the woman asked.

“Thought he’d make some money cheating at cards. My boys tried to have a talk with him and he attacked them.”

A dozen retorts rose to Mircea’s lips, but he bit them back. He’d attempted that when he was first brought in, and received a face full of fist for his trouble. But it didn’t look like the woman cared how he got here.

“Background?”

“He wasn’t forthcoming,” the man had the effrontery to say. “But he’s educated.”

“He told you this?”

The vampire laughed. “He told us nothing. The boys got a little too enthusiastic when he decided to resist, and he couldn’t talk much by the time they was done.”

“Then how do you know?”

Heavy shoulders raised in a shrug. “He’s been seen reading and writing at least a couple of languages, and he speaks five that we know of.”

“As do I. And I was born in an Athenian slum.”

“Yes, but you learned it after, like me. But look at him. He can’t be more than a few years out of the dirt. And no newborn has the presence of mind for something like that! So he learned it before. And his clothes were good quality, if worn. I’m thinking some noble sprout down on his luck.”

“Perhaps,” the woman said, noncommittal.

The vampire consulted his notes again. “So you said educated, noble or close enough to fake it, and pretty.” The man glanced up and looked Mircea over. He frowned briefly, probably wishing his boys had been less “enthusiastic,” but he decided to make the best of it. “He’ll clean up,” he told her jovially.

“He isn’t the usual type for Venice,” the woman said mildly.

“Type, type!” the man scoffed. “What type? He’s young, he’s well-built—and well endowed,” he added, nodding at one of the soldiers. “Your clients’ll like that.”

The woman didn’t respond. But she also didn’t stop the soldiers, who moved toward Mircea with obvious intent. He’d already been on a low boil, hearing himself being discussed like a horse to be traded. But at that, something in him snapped.

He broke the first arm that reached for him, and then lashed out, kicking the nearest guard in the stomach with enough force to send him staggering back. And into another, who was just standing there, looking bemused. It seemed that prisoners weren’t supposed to try to escape.

Fuck that,
Mircea thought viciously, and lunged for the still-open door.

He never knew how close he came, just that the next time he blinked he was on the floor. And the second after that, he was being hauled up and slammed back into the wall, hard enough to have broken a human’s bones. It didn’t feel like it had done his any good, either, but worse was the sensation of shackles being clicked shut around his wrists and ankles.

Mircea thrashed against the bonds, which the triple damned guards jerked vengefully tight. But they weren’t normal metal. He could bend solid steel, one of the few perks of his new condition, but these didn’t budge. But he kept struggling anyway, jerking on the chains and cursing and panting in hopeless fury.

Which did nothing to keep his last remaining garment from being stripped down his thighs.

He was left naked and wild-eyed, and splayed against the wall like an animal up for inspection. Or gutting, for all he knew. It was not a nice thought to have as the woman stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.

The leather of her glove was strangely textured, almost reptilian. And cold, as if it still carried the chill of the streets outside. Mircea shivered as she began to trace the muscles in his torso, the vulnerable skin of his stomach, the deep V of muscle below his navel.

And then followed it down the crease of his leg, to the inevitable conclusion.

He was soft, of course, never having felt less aroused in his life. But the woman was a vampire, too, and she didn’t need his cooperation. A single finger ran down his length, calling his blood as easily as he could summon it from a human’s veins. He watched helplessly as his flesh swelled and lifted, rising eagerly up to meet her touch.

But she didn’t appear impressed. She glanced at the condottiere. “Too big.”

“First time I ever heard a woman say that!” he laughed.

“Then you must not have bedded many women in Venice.”

“I’ve bedded plenty!”

“Then you should know: women or men, they all want the same thing here. Slender boys with pink cheeks, a languid manner, and faces as pretty as a girl’s. Not muscles and body hair and a stallion’s girth.”

She looked amused as she explored the extent of the latter, pulling more blood into his already engorged heat, testing Mircea to his limit and then pushing beyond. Until he jutted out thick and aching, larger than he’d ever been, his skin stretched tight around a truly desperate need.

A small smile began to play around her lips.

“He’s pretty enough—” the condottiere insisted.

“For a commoner, perhaps. I need courtiers.”

“But he’s noble—”

“So you say.”

“He was trained as a knight! I know the kind of muscle hefting a sword builds!”

She shrugged. “Keep him for your watch, then.”

“I’ve better things to do than nurse an infant.”

“As do I,” she murmured, and began to stroke.

Mircea stared at her in disbelief, even as his body cried out for release. Did she actually expect him to perform for her, to spill himself like a whore for the amusement of her friends? It seemed impossible, ludicrous. But her actions were unmistakable, as was her power. It thrummed through him, tightening his body, escalating his need.

But there were other needs, and outrage lent them strength. In his own land, he had been a prince. Death had robbed much from him, almost everything, but it hadn’t taken that. It could never take that. And he did not perform like a trained monkey in a square!

And it seemed that in this, at least, she could not force him, because she abruptly let go.

But only to strip off her glove.

“He doesn’t need strength to roll around in the sheets,” the condottiere said contemptuously.

“But he does need refinement—a great deal of it.”

“Trimming those eyebrows alone might take a week,” a blond murmured. He was male, Mircea realized with a shock. He hadn’t noticed before, since the peacock had been dressed every bit as sumptuously as the women, with a ridiculous red velvet cape that fell in costly excess to the floor.

“And the more I have to do to make him useful, the more it costs me.”

“Damn it, Martina!” The condottiere exploded. “You told me to find you something different—”

“And you interpreted that to mean an over muscled oaf?” One delicate eyebrow went up.

“Then what
do
you want?”

The blond cleared his throat, and made an exaggerated bow. The condottiere cursed. And the vampire Martina grasped Mircea again, this time skin to skin.

And he’d been wrong, he realized in creeping horror. It wasn’t the glove that was scaly-smooth. It was the hand underneath.

His body shuddered as she met his eyes, revulsion battling with desperate need. And fury and shame and more than a little fear. But greater than any of those was confusion.

Why was she doing this? If she wasn’t interested, why didn’t she leave him be? Go find herself some other poor bastard who better fit her demanding specifications?

“I have other buyers—” the condottiere threatened, apparently wondering the same thing.

“Then sell him to them.”

“But I acquired him with you in mind. I wanted to give you first choice—”

They kept haggling, but Mircea was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. Perhaps because she had turned her attention to the globes between his thighs. The horror of her touch caused them to try to retreat into his flesh, but her power forced them to drop heavily into her grasp, like two ripe fruits.

“Forty?” the condottiere was outraged. “That’s the price of a nag of a horse! I couldn’t take less than two hundred.”

“And I can’t offer more than fifty.”

“Now I know you’re joking. I could get more for a human slave than that!”

Martina said something else, but Mircea didn’t hear. She had started rolling him across her palm, as expertly as a gambler manipulating a pair of dice. And the slow, deliberate, over gentle pressure was maddening.

Until she suddenly squeezed and twisted, and he let out a gasp that froze in the chilly air between them. His fists knotted, his thighs corded, his buttocks clenched and jerked, his whole body begging for release no matter the cost. He snarled and denied it.

“Oh, this should be fun,” the blond sighed, walking off to examine one of the others.

“That has yet to be determined,” his mistress said softly, her dark eyes still holding Mircea’s.

And finally, he understood. Half of this demonstration was theatre, designed to lower the price. But not all of it. She wanted him to understand that she expected obedience. That spirit was one thing, but defiance would not be tolerated. She wanted him to prove that he would defer to her wishes, however unpleasant.

She wanted him to submit.

And if he didn’t, she would leave him here, to wither and suffer and, eventually, to die.

Mircea was a gambler; he knew a losing hand when he saw it. But he’d never wanted to play one more in his life. She recognized his reluctance, and for some reason, it seemed to please her.

But the novelty wouldn’t last, and unlike that fool of a condottiere, he knew how to close a deal.

He licked his lips. “The others . . .” His voice broke, but his eyes slid to the three castoffs beside him.

They didn’t react, probably not realizing what he was asking. The older one’s head had even slumped again, as if this was all too uninteresting to bother with. But Martina understood.

“Done.” It was immediate. It was too fast. There was something wrong here.

“What do you intend to do with me?” It came out more forcefully than he’d intended, nerves and abuse making his voice rough.

But she only smiled. “Whatever I please, vampire.”

Yes, Mircea had no doubts of that. But it wasn’t likely that he would get a better offer elsewhere. Or possibly any offer. He knew that.

But his body stayed rigid another moment nonetheless, intellect warring with abhorrence, and self-preservation with self-respect. Where there is life, there is hope, he reminded himself harshly. Even the bastardized version of life that was all that he had left.

Martina smiled, a hint of fang against carmine lips, as she felt the globes in her hand draw up again. Mircea refused to look away, refused to give her that satisfaction, even when her grip moved back up to curl around him. Even when she made it clear that she intended to feel his surrender as well as see it.

But the way her eyes darkened as his skin prickled and his buttocks clenched soon had him wishing he’d chosen differently. And the expression on her face as his body began to shudder made him want to swallow his pride. But it was her terrible smile when the moment of no return came, when he panicked at the last second and vainly tried to stop the now inevitable process, which proved too much.

Humiliated and beaten, he looked away. Only to meet the gaze of the women she’d brought with her. Somehow, he’d managed to forget about them, but they were still standing by the door, fans fluttering languidly, watching him with curious eyes.

Mircea could only stare back, utterly mortified, as the first pulse of his release surged through the cage of their mistress’s fist.

Surged and stopped, for it seemed even that humiliation was not enough.

Martina’s grip abruptly tightened, making clear that he did nothing without her permission. She would control how hard, how fast, and how much relief he was permitted. And she prolonged the lesson, augmenting his need with her power, and then denying it, again and again, until he was shivering and gasping, aching and desperate. Until he was writhing against the wall, begging for the chance he’d previously disdained. Until she had stripped him of his pride, his defiance, and almost his reason.

And then she finally released him, allowing him to spill the last vestiges of his self-respect onto the cold stones at her feet.

He stood there quietly afterwards, stunned and shaking. And stared blankly into space as she and the condottiere concluded their business. He only came out of his reverie when her fist abruptly tightened again, the golden nails biting possessively into his abused flesh.

No, he realized dully, a moment later.
Her
flesh. For she hoarsely threw over her shoulder: “One hundred ducats then.”

The condottiere sighed, but nodded, agreeing to accept the price of a good mule for Mircea’s mind and body, life and sex.

And just like that, the prince became the slave.

The next night, Mircea stood in a small salon in Martina’s large house, being tortured in a new way.

“I’m tripping over whores!” The dramatic exclamation came from the hallway, but a moment later, a tall blond stumbled inside.

The blond’s name was Paulo, and he was normally as graceful as when he’d bowed to the condottiere the night before. But even vampire reflexes were hard pressed to navigate all the debris littering the floor of the elegant room. Or what would have been elegant if it hadn’t currently resembled a tradesman’s shop.

A very expensive tradesman’s shop,
Mircea thought, still somewhat scandalized at the sight of rich silks, gleaming satins, delicate taffetas, sumptuous velvets, and glittering brocades casually strewn about, as if they were nothing. To the point that some of the precious stuff had slipped off tables and onto the floor. And into the doorway, where despite Paulo’s pronouncement, it was a bolt of shimmering bronze silk that had tripped him up.

The whores around here had better reflexes.

All except for Mircea, who was currently pinned in place.

He wondered if the torturer masquerading as a tailor had been aware of exactly the kind of establishment that had summoned him and his staff in the middle of the night. Judging by the state of his thigh, which had just taken another jab from the scandalized man, he supposed not. But pinpricks were less of a concern than certain other things.

“Must they be so tight?” he demanded, looking down at his legs. The scarlet hosen the man was pinning together—and to Mircea’s flesh—were too snug and far too thin. They hugged every muscle, every bulge, drawing attention to his lower body rather than providing proper concealment.

“Tighter,” the auburn-haired beauty lounging on a nearby chaise laughed. “There’s no money in modesty.”

Her name was Auria, and she clearly took her own advice. Her rose-colored, pearl-encrusted gown was stunning even by Venetian standards, as was the cleavage exposed by the wide neck and low décolleté. In Wallachia, she would have been flogged for a display like that. But Mircea supposed it made a sort of sense here. In a town where even the respectable women went around with painted faces, low-cut gowns, and foot-high platform shoes, a whore had to step up her game.

Unfortunately, she’d decided to do the same thing to him, and Mircea had no idea how to get her to stop.

“Any tighter and I won’t be able to sit down,” he protested.

“We’ll prop you against a wall,” the cheeky wench told him. “We’re not going to have chairs for everyone anyway, if this keeps up.”

Mircea glanced over at two of his former cellmates, who were perched on the side of a table because Auria was right—they were running out of room. The pockmarked brunet was nowhere in sight. But the older man, called Bezio, and the slighter blond named Jerome were also being tortured, although not by the devil of a tailor, who hadn’t gotten to them yet. But by some of the house maids, who were trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Thankfully, none of them had been among the group with Martina last night.

Those women had been friends of hers, on their way back from a ball, whom she’d carried along on her shopping trip as if picking up a new trinket. But she’d come home with four filthy, beat up, naked vampires instead, who Mircea had fully expected to be further abused. Instead, they’d been hustled through a back entrance, marched to the kitchen and scrubbed within an inch of their undead lives by a small cook with a vendetta against lice.

“I don’t have lice!” Mircea had told her, indignantly.

“Not anymore,” she’d replied, and dunked him under the caustic water.

He wasn’t sure what she’d had in there, but if he’d still had human skin, it probably would have sloughed off. Instead, he’d been wrapped in a blanket and shoved into a small, windowless room just as daybreak was sapping the last of his strength. And now it was night again, and he was being outfitted, if not like a prince, then at least like a gentleman.

He didn’t know what to make of any of it. He just knew he had to get out. And quickly, before Martina used a blood bond to insure that he never would.

He had been surprised that she hadn’t done it last night, but perhaps he’d been too weak. The beating, the blood loss from healing, and the lack of anything like a meal in well over a day had left him in poor shape. And he’d heard rumors that binding an ill vampire often didn’t go well.

But he’d fed this morning, on one of the human servants Martina kept to guard the house during the day. It hadn’t replaced all that he’d lost, but he was far better off than he’d been. Which meant that he was running out of time.

He needed to get out of here.

He also really needed the damned tailor to stop sticking him with pins.

The man drew one back, frowned at the bent head, and placed it on a pile with several others.

“How many is it now?” Auria asked Paulo, who had finally joined them.

“Six, as of this evening. If you mean how many new faces. This lot, one more who I don’t think even make up is going to help, and two girls Martina picked up a week ago but who just arrived. Although where she thinks we’re going to put them all, I have no idea.”

“We’ll stack ’em like cordwood in the kitchen,” Auria said cheerfully, and poked the tailor with her fan. “Tighter!”

“You aren’t helping,” Paulo told her, tugging on an auburn curl that had escaped from the elaborate bun on top of her head.

“Well you don’t want it too loose, or he’ll end up looking like those old men in the marketplace,” she told him, smiling innocently. “Or you in that green outfit.”

“There is nothing wrong with my green outfit—”

“Except saggy butt.”

“My hosen fit perfectly,” he said with dignity. And then ruined the effect by swatting at her with the notebook he was holding.

It didn’t appear to have much effect. “Saggy butt, saggy butt!” Auria sang, her youthful laughter belying her age, which Mircea had been told was closing in on a century. But she’d been changed at sixteen, and still often acted like it, to the tailor’s consternation and Mircea’s amazement.

He didn’t know what to make of these vampires. He’d met others of his kind before, of course. But none of them had acted so . . . human.

Of course, they weren’t human. He knew that. They were monsters like him. They were just well-fed, well-dressed monsters, unlike the ones he usually met. But exactly like the kind he’d run afoul of once or twice—and barely survived the experience.

Others hadn’t been so lucky.

One of his first weeks in the city he’d ventured into a gaming den run by one of the local lords of the undead. Unlike the crude market stalls and tavern back rooms where humans played their games of chance, this one occupied a graceful palazzo with an elegant atrium. Mircea had been pleasantly surprised.

Until he’d noticed what was nailed to the wall.

He had stood in the door, transfixed, and stared at the creature. Raw, red muscles and pale tendons were working, lidless eyes were staring, and a lipless mouth was open in mewling, unearthly cries as it writhed in agony. Mircea had finally realized what he was seeing when he noticed the limp skin, still in the vague shape of a man, which someone had managed to remove almost in one piece. And which had been fixed to the wall alongside the sufferer, where he could see it.

Because a vampire couldn’t die even from that much trauma.

A placard over the man’s head had explained that those who cheated in order to fleece others would have the same thing done to them, or words to that effect. Mircea hadn’t taken the time to focus on them. He’d been too busy turning on his heel and going off to find a human game, where he had concentrated his efforts thereafter.

He’d learned that day: an open port did not mean a protected one. The Watch was here to keep order and to benefit those who could pay them. Everyone else was on their own.

He had to get away.

Fortunately, he had a small stash of money at his lodgings that the Watch hadn’t found. It should suffice to get Horatiu back to Wallachia, should he choose to go, or at least safely out of the city. And Mircea—

Would manage. He was, he had discovered to his surprise, rather good at that. After a lifetime of study designed to make him fit for a palace, he had taken to the gutter remarkably quickly. He would find somewhere to go, like he had almost found a way out of here shortly after getting up, before running into the damned tailor in the doorway. And then Auria had arrived and that had been that. But maybe—

Auria interrupted him again by bolting off the chaise with a laugh and a swirl of skirts, and attacking the startled tradesman’s assistant, who had just come in with another armful of silks. She grabbed a bolt of bright crimson off the top with a crow of triumph. “This one!”

To Mircea’s consternation, Paulo was nodding thoughtfully, sizing him up with a practiced eye. “It could work.”

“I like the black,” Mircea said swiftly, nodding at a plain piece of serviceable wool propped against the wall.

“The black, too,” Paulo said. “But in velvet.”

For the first time, the tailor started to look less exasperated. Unlike Auria, who pouted prettily. “What about the blue? He needs color.”

“Blue is for girls who want to look like the Virgin,” Paulo said repressively. “Neither of which is appropriate here.”

Auria snorted, obviously completely unrepressed, and tossed bolts here and there until—

Mircea stared in horror as the girl beamed at an eye-searing piece of shiny yellow brocade. “If you want appropriate, how about the yellow? I heard Florence even makes its whores wear—”

“Why do you need so many?” Mircea blurted, as the tailor’s scandalized glance went from him to Auria and back again.

Auria blinked at him. “Well, you can’t wear the same thing every day—”

“I meant us,” Mircea said, more roughly than he’d intended. It prompted startled looks from the duo on the table, neither of whom had so far uttered a peep. But he was damned if he was going to stand there like a statue without at least asking about their situation. “Why do you need us?”

But Auria didn’t look annoyed. If anything, she seemed almost giddy. “Convocation,” she said, rolling the word over her tongue as if relishing it.

“Oh, God,” Paulo said. “Don’t get her started.”

But Auria had started, on what was obviously a favorite topic. “It’s in Venice this year—
finally!
It’s in a different city every two years, but it’s never us! They’ve been to every pig wallow and mud pit this side of the Arno, and every time we thought, this time, it has to be our turn—it wasn’t. But, at last, it is! The senate announced it just last week—”

“Giving us so much time to prepare,” Paulo said sardonically.

“They never announce it early,” Auria said. “They’re worried about their enemies—”

“Yes, but keeping them in the dark ’til the last minute means a ridiculous amount of work for us! Everyone is scrambling to make ready at the same time, making even basic provisions hard to obtain—”

“Well, of course. Senators have already started arriving. One of their entourages almost ran me down today—”

“—and all slap in the middle of festival season!” Paulo finished, looking aggrieved. “With the city already bursting at the seams. It’s madness!”

“Very profitable madness,” Auria said. “Or it will be, if we can get this lot ready in time.”

“Get us ready for what?” Mircea demanded, but no one was listening anymore, due to an argument that had broken out over the all-important topic of the older vampire’s beard.

“Forked,” one of the maids hovering around Bezio said decisively.

“Clubbed,” another announced, just as strongly.

“Forked, unless you want him to look old and boring.”

“Clubbed, unless you want him to look like a ship’s captain.”

“At least ship captains have some style—”

“And no class. We need him to look like he fits in a drawing room.”

“As the butler?”

“Clubbed!”

“Forked!”

“Pointed,” Paulo said, cutting in. “His face needs the length.”

And that ended that. No one asked the man himself what he wanted, of course, any more than they would ask a chair if it wanted to be reupholstered. He didn’t matter; none of them did.

“Why do you need us?” Mircea asked again, harshly.

Auria looked up, startled, from examining more of the silks. “What?”

“Why are we here? To entertain senators?”

Auria just stared at him for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“That would be a no,” Paulo said dryly. “You’re here, along with the rest, to free
us
up to entertain senators.”

“Mmmmm, senators.” Auria fell back against the chaise, hugging an armful of silk to her breast. “I heard they give the most delicious presents. Ropes of pearls, barrels of them. And rubies the size of my fist, and collars of diamonds, and jeweled sleeves—”

“And you know this how?” Paulo inquired.

“I hear things,” the auburn-haired beauty said archly. “Anyway, do you think the mistress is going to all this expense for nothing? She knows—this will
make
us!”

“Or break us, at the rate you spend money.” He caught Mircea’s eye and scowled. “You’re here to take care of our regular clientele and the extra business from the festival crowds, to run errands, and to do whatever else makes it easier for us to attend to high profile clients. And preferably to maintain a good attitude whilst you’re at it!”

“And after?”

Mircea didn’t get a response to that, either, because one of the servants approached him, tweezers in hand.

Fortunately for the man’s health, Paulo stopped him in time. “The mistress said no.”

“No?” The man looked dubious.

“She wants him left rough around the edges. Something about having a particular client in mind—”

He suddenly cut off, at the same time that Auria’s head jerked up.

“Oh! Oh, is it—” she exclaimed, as what sounded like a stampede of cats rushed by outside. It was eerily silent except for the
creak-creak-creak
of the old wooden staircase under what had to be dozens of feet, all going up.